This article discusses a recent decision by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal which found discrimination to be present against workers from Latin America employed on construction of the Canada Line rapid transit link, built in preparation for the 2010 Vancouver-Whistler Winter Olympics. The tribunal concluded that the workers’ race, color, ancestry and place of origin were factors in mistreatment by the employer and a prima facie case of discrimination was established with regards to the Latin American workers who were treated adversely compared to Canadian and European workers.

Now available from ALGORA Publishing....
(also $19.95 from Amazon.com)Despite claims about globalization, we see increasing surveillance, tightened restrictions and growing punitive regimes at international borders.

This critical collection examines processes of racialization in relation to border regulations and restrictions. It analyses border controls, racism, and representations of race, within multinational contexts as aspects of neo-liberal governance. It also looks at means by which people resist or challenge racialization.

This collection uses the lenses of sociology, criminology, art, literary criticism and political science to critically examine varied processes of racialization, criminalization and resistance in relation to borders with reference to multi-national contexts in the current period.

In events like the G20 protests and clampdown there emerge real opportunities for recognition and understanding that are not always so readily available behind the screen of “business as usual.” The learning curve shifts and some things become much more clear.

One of the interesting revelations of the G20 fallout is the extent to which many in the social movements or “the Left” are ruled by the morals, values and prejudices of the dominant classes.

As the state capitalist carnivals of the G8/G20 got underway in cottage country and Toronto widespread public outrage focused on the $1.3 billion security extravagance—the fences, security cameras, weapons, vehicles and mass policing that have become regular features of such elite get-togethers. While governments of the G8 claim the need for austerity, social spending cuts and belt tightening for the working classes, they have no shortage of public money to spend on their own comfort.

Published by Linchpin, ~ February/March 2010
By Jeff Shantz
State Repression Columnist

Only a few days into the Olympic spectacle and much talk had turned to black blocs and a few broken insured Hudson Bay Company windows. Yet much of the discussion has been framed within a strange liberal duality of choices between militant demonstrations (said to be offensive to working class observers) and supposedly “peaceful” symbolic protests, like the march the night of the opening ceremonies (which is presented as more palatable to working class audiences). As if the actions of the demonstrators are the real question and determine the structure of events. Anyone who has ever been on a picket line might find this a bit strange —working class folks have never been involved in dust ups with the cops?— and it has me reflecting not so much on the specific actions in Vancouver as on the broader context for policing and protests.

This paper addresses feminist materialism as political practice through a case study of IWW-Earth First! Local 1, the late Judi Bari's organization of a radical ecology/ timber workers' union in the ancient redwood forests of Northern California. Rejecting the Earth First! mythology of timber workers as enemies' of nature, Bari sought to unite workers and environmentalists in pursuit of sustainable forestry practices against the devastating approaches favoured by multinational logging corporations. In so doing, she brought a working-class feminist perspective to the radical ecology of Earth First!

One of the all time great swindles of history is the massive free labor subsidy that capital has scored in working class homes. So much of our time, energy, interests, resources and money goes into the home-based work to re-produce our class....

"Rape, racism, sexism, and capitalism have been consistent elements in a long history of documented assaults against the reproductive sovereignty of Black women." [1] -Theryn Kigvamasud’ Vashti, Communities Against Rape and Abuse

For working women, control of one's own body is constantly another turf battle in the class war. In this second article in our series on reproduction, we look at birth control and sterilization in the context of other attacks on the poor.